Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for a London-based fund that was once the biggest in Russia, wrote to his mother of wasting away from an agonizing illness without proper medical care in a crowded Moscow prison. He was awaiting trial for tax-evasion charges. But Magnitsky eventually died in prison, just 11 days after his last letter reached his mother. Magnitsky’s story has hit a nerve in Russia, where memories linger of the millions who died of cold, starvation and neglect in the harsh Soviet gulag. Host Scott Simon talks about the Magnitsky case with NPR’s Anne Garrels.

In November, a 37-year-old tax lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky died in a Russian jail cell. Before he passed away, Magnitsky drafted a series of letters and petitions describing the squalid conditions in Russia’s prisons. Now, those documents have leaked and have created an unusual firestorm of criticism in a country where millions once perished in the Soviet Gulag. We’ll speak with Washington Post foreign correspondent Philip P. Pan, who just returned from Russia and has written about the case. You can read his article about Magnitsky’s letters here.

The recent death of a Moscow lawyer has caused an outcry in Russia and the U.K. The lawyer was working for a British investment firm and claimed to have evidence that Russian officials perpetrated a massive tax fraud. Stephen Beard reports.